Vegan bar-diner It’s fun, funky and friendly. But is the food as edible as it is ethical?

ANYWAY, we’re in the basement drinking. Diet Fritz Kola, since you ask, while a framed photo of George Michael with a flickering candle beside it sits on the bar and I try to make sense of these in-your-face menus.

They’re a bit like looking at Vincent Vega dancing in Pulp Fiction. Disorientating, if you know what I mean. “So …” I say, looking over my middle-aged-man reading specs towards the cool young dudes behind the bar, “you do sell meat, then?”

At that I gesture towards one of the two menus I’m holding, to the bit that is all burgers, hot dogs and mac ’n’ cheese. “No, no meat,” comes the mystifying reply.

Anyway, right at this point I’m distracted by the realisation that there aren’t two menus at all. There are just lots of identical menus with two sides to them. And I’m holding two of them out. Um.

And what the hell is this Fritz Kola anyway, I think, as I zip over to a vacant table much more zippily than normal. On account, it will turn out, of this diet cola not being diet cola at all, as I thought I had ordered, but full-fat, double, double caffeine cola. So not only am I buzzing after drinking it, I’m getting fatter too. Great.

Anyway, there were so many fonts and colours and items on that menu that in the end I panic-ordered the first three things that jumped out and bit me in the face. Which makes it kind of surprising when I later lift a bratwurst slithered with good currywurst sauce and cool mayo from a basket of excellent skinny fries and take a bite.

It’s a while since I had a currywurst but somewhere in my brain my currywurst recognition routine slides into action and instantly reports: that ain’t a sausage, mate. It’s seared like a sausage, it smells like a sausage, it even looks like a sausage but what’s in the middle … it ain’t right.

It’s kind of mushy, collapsy, not in the least bit reassuringly rubbery like one would expect a sausage made from lips and ears or whatever they use to make real sausages. Eek.

I peer deeply at the menu again and there it is. Hidden among the swirls and birls: “All food free from animal produce.” You’re right. That means the cheese in this maccarito, with bloody mary dipping sauce and fried onions, contains no real cheese.

OK, I do like the 12-inch toasted burrito it’s served in, but the mac ’n’ cheese inside? Hmm, no. It’s not even fakey-bakey cheesey tasting. Don’t get me wrong, this would probably be horrible even if it was filled with real cheese.

You think I’m going to complain about the sauteed kale now, don’t you? It is completely vegan too. Actually, it’s just like real kale and very pleasant. Clever how they do that.

And of course I ordered the burger. By warily retracing my steps on the menu I discover it is a seitan burger – no, I haven’t a scooby either.

It has a mild meat-ish (if you close one eye) flavour and isn’t slabbered with the usual meat-taste-disguising crap normal burgers are these days. It’s OK.

Would I have one again? Assuming I wasn’t put off by seitan turning out to be wheat gluten and hadn’t seen those seitan pictures on the internet. I’d probably try the optional chick-pea mix burger instead.

Glasgow is the vegan food capital of the

UK. There are so many vegan restaurants here it’s staggering. Usually they’re great. This cool and attractive place is the first vegan joint I have visited where they mimic mainstream food. But isn’t that like renouncing consumerism then spending your whole time whittling a wooden mobile phone? It makes no sense. But I suppose I can eat the real thing if I choose to, unethical though I accept that probably is.

The diet cola is not diet cola at all, but full-fat, double, double caffeine cola. So not only am I buzzing, I’m getting fatter too

PHOTOGRAPH: COLIN MEARNS Much of the fare might look familiar but meat and dairy are entirely absent from the menu at The Flying Duck, which excels in almost every respect